Handpicked VR Links - Issue #8

Hi again. Reviewers got their hands on the HTC Vive this week and I put together a roundup of reviews below. Not sure when I’ll get mine, but haven’t received my Oculus Rift CV1 yet either, so I’m just sitting tight right now and mainly using my new gaming PC to play Civ V on fully maxed out settings.

Tons of great stuff in this week’s issue, make sure you scroll all the way down. The section with links to stuff about non-gaming VR is especially weird and wonderful.

As always, please get in touch if you’re working on something in VR or have a link you think I should include in next week’s edition. Also, if you like my newsletter would you mind sharing it?

What sets Vive apart so thoroughly is how it blurs the division between the digital space and the real world. Spend a few minutes in even the most basic of Vive games, and it’s hard not to get sucked into believing that the two environments are one and the same. It’s simply more realistic, more engaging, and frankly more fun than any of the others.

For the last few days, I’ve been playing around with a review Vive. The arrival of the $799 device—along with last week’s launch of the $599 Oculus Rift—marks the point at which we can truly say that the full spectrum of consumer VR is here.

With two major, groundbreaking features that set it head and shoulders above its current competition, the HTC Vive is the most capable and versatile of the pair of near-magical virtual reality headsets you can buy today.

BMW has become the first car manufacturer to introduce a mixed reality system into vehicle development that has been devised entirely using components from the computer games industry. This offers some significant advantages over the VR systems that have existed to date, and is the first step towards making virtual reality a very real part of many developer workstations in the not-too-distant future.

Japanese gaming company Bandai Namco has revealed a new VR installation to debut in Tokyo on April 15th called “Project I Can,” aiming to help people face their fears by placing them in appropriate VR situations.

IKEA today announced the release of a pilot virtual reality app, the IKEA VR Experience, on Valve’s world leading game platform Steam. The test app, featuring a virtual kitchen experience, is the first foray from IKEA into VR technology.

Virtual reality made its way into the NFL last year, when the Dallas Cowboys became the first team in the league to use the technology for training. Now, on the Major League Baseball side, a similar path is being followed by the Tampa Bay Rays. The team has started utilizing a simulator from EON Sports VR known as iCube, which lets players step inside a virtual batting cage and practice their swing.

This might not be the picture that comes to to your mind when you hear the word Virtual Reality. But in Ushapur village, 80 km from Ujjain, you would see many, including children and elderly women, sit with folded hands and peering into wearing VR headsets giving them a virtual darshan of the famous Mahakaal temple.

Today, we’re excited to share with you our new mobile app featuring VR Call. VR Call is an easy and quick way to be together with anyone in VR. It’s as simple as picking an activity on your phone, inviting your friends, and meeting them in AltspaceVR.

Samsung’s Gear VR already has a web browser, but it’s now ready to browse the virtual reality experiences you find on the web, too. The company has introduced experimental support for WebVR that gives you full immersion when you visit supporting content using the headset.

Virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR aren’t exactly cheap or readily available right now. So the best way to try one out is to go to a public event where they are being shown off. That’s great, but you will be placing a headset over your eyes that’s been on the sweaty heads of hundreds of other people.

With VR Lens Lab, we have created easy-to-use glasses for your headset that you can simply leave within the headset. It is virtual reality eyewear just not for you but your VR headset.

With our glasses for VR headsets, you can finally enjoy a full field of vision and protect your headset’s lenses from dust and scratches. You no longer have to wear glasses or contact lenses to enjoy virtual reality experiences with razor-sharp and super-crisp graphics.

Between the Rift CV1 and the Vive, I’ve spent more time in a VR headset than anyone who isn’t building VR stuff should have at this early point.

I’ve come to realize a few things about VR in that time — things that weren’t immediately obvious when I was just pondering how neat VR could be, or during the many sessions I’d had with the early developer headset prototypes.

Virtual reality has been promised as gaming’s next big thing but it’s not the most practical way to pass your commute.
It comes after a man was filmed playing a virtual reality video game while riding the train.
Neil Lindquist took the original video during his regular morning commute to work in Boston on Friday.